COST REDUCTION STRATEGIES
Spring 2024
INFLATION
Inflation has been a major part of the global food industry since early in 2022. Food processors have been forced to deal with prices for ingredients going up by 10%, 20%, 60% and even over 100% with little to no warning. They are also being squeezed by retailers pushing back on processors to maintain or even reduce costs. In most cases the raw material increases are due to one off or systemic events like reduced crop yields due to poor growing seasons, transport costs due to rising fuel costs and transportation pathway disturbances. Some of these issues can be traced back to Covid disruptions, some to irregular weather patterns and some to very unexpected and devastating wars.
Consumers are starting to feel the pinch as they are squeezed between substantially higher food prices and residential prices and some of the highest interest rates in 20 years. Canadian consumers are struggling to maintain their ability to secure and consume good tasting and nutritious food products.
At Hela Spice, we started looking at these issues a couple of years ago. We have used our global reach to secure great ingredients at the most competitive prices available. Our pricing is as current as we can make it. We also wanted to take a fresh look at all our food products, with a special focus on meat products, to look at ways of creating less expensive, but great tasting, healthy and convenient food products that offer marketable benefits for consumers.
SNACK FOODS
Snack foods have been experiencing sustained demand growth over the last few years and they show no indication of slowing down. Due to the same ingredient price pressures that other food categories are experiencing, Snack Foods are feeling the pinch and are adapting by reducing portion sizes, looking for ways to economize on the recipe, streamlining offerings and even to the point of stopping production of some brands. The creative people in the Hela Spice R&D team went back to find ways to not only provide cost effective meat-based snack foods, but also a way to value add upcycled or innovative food ingredients to create new and innovative snack foods that add great value for both the consumers and the processors.
Shelf Stable Hot Dog, Pepperoni and Salami Bites
- Rather than using broken hot dogs, slicing ends or miscuts as low value rework or sold off as seconds at low value, we have developed seasoned, fully dried and shelf stable bites perfect as a supplement to pepperettes or jerkie.
Protein Chips
- A wonderful way to use lower value meat trim or innovative vegetable proteins and combining them with delicious ingredients like wheat, rice and potato flour, along with starches, to create healthy and high value snack foods. We can also add upcycled vegetable ingredients to add great flavours and differences that also offer CO2 reduction benefits.
Extruded Snacks or Nut Mixes
- Hela Spice has spent a lot of time looking at innovative new ingredients for the plant-based market. What we have found is that there are some that offer substantial benefits for a company looking for a healthy, nutritious high protein snack food. For example, we have an organic extruded soy flour based crisp, that just needs a flavoured coating to be a delightful snack offering. Another great idea is to add these extruded protein pieces to nut blends as a way of extending the blends at a reduced cost.
Our Hela R&D Team have many other concepts involving innovative ways to upcycle trim pieces to reduce waste and improve margins
HOT DOGS AND SAUSAGES
Hot dogs and sausages are usually the first place consumers go to reduce their meat expenses. This historically often been a good choice, but since the inflationary period, hot dogs and sausages have risen dramatically in cost as well. So how do you reduce the cost of these lower cost staples? The Hela Spice team stepped back and looked at it in a completely new way. We have looked at the replacement of a portion of the meat block with readily available bean, grain and pea flours to imagine a line of healthy, great tasting meat products that combine the meat and vegetable proteins to create lower cost meat products. All the nutrition and taste, but lower in cost with healthier eating.
It has taken a lot of hard work, innovative ingredient application and testing, testing and even more testing, but we have developed functional combinations that are almost indistinguishable to a traditional meat-based product and offer a great eating experience and excellent nutritional benefits.
Chicken, Pork and Chickpea Flour Hot Dog
- Blend of finely textured pork and chicken, combined with an extremely functional chickpea flour and other ingredients
Pork and Textured Pea and Red Lentil Breakfast Sausage
- All the taste, texture and flavour, lower in cost and healthier with included fibre and vegetable protein
Pork, Sweet Potato Flour and Textured Fava Bean Cheddar Smokie
- With expected texture, flavour and colour, all wrapped up in a lower cost, great tasting and nutritious product
… and these products are easy to produce!
LUNCHEON MEATS
Hela Spice knows luncheon and deli meats! We also know ways to reduce costs to produce them and still offer great tasting, healthy and economical products, by just looking at them a bit differently. We can break this up into two ways.
The first way is to examine the processes and ingredients used to produce the existing products and look for options that can reduce the costs, but still offer a traditional product. Our experiences over the last few years with novel functional ingredients has provided our R&D team with a great set of tools at their disposal.
The second way is getting creative in a way similar to what we just discussed with hot dogs. This is to look at replacing a portion of the meat protein with nutritional and lower cost vegetable protein flours that offer great functionality at a savings. Each product may require a different approach, but we have already produced sample products that meet these targets.
Bright and Flavourful Fermented and Dried Meats
- A delicious pepperette made with sweet potato flour
- A fully dried and fermented pepperoni, ready for pizza, extended with tapioca flour and chickpea flour
- How about a spicy chipotle Jerky, made with beef, lentils and oat fibre?
Delicious Cooked Meats
- Reduced cost sliced chicken or turkey with only wheat flour and textural wheat proteins
- Baked turkey loaf with a large percentage of a functional chickpea flour
- Sliced bologna extended with pork proteins and lentil flour
… and many more exciting concepts available.
BAKED OR BREADED MEATS
One area where we can use some knowledge that we have uncovered over the last few years, is in the baked and breaded meat product categories. Just like with luncheon meats, we can break this up into two ways.
The easiest and fastest to market would be in producing meat products that extend proteins with the addition of new and lower cost proteins like soy, wheat, chickpea and lentils. In addition, we can look at the batter and breading systems to replace the traditional ways of doing things and use a system that is substantially lower in cost and used by some of the most popular chicken nuggets in the world.
The second way is get creative in a way similar to what we just discussed. This is to look at replacing the present methods of creating a product, with some of the new, lower cost and functional flours. With strong nutritional and lower cost, vegetable protein flours offer great functionality with savings and organic as well. Each product may require a different approach, but we have already produced sample products that meet these targets.
Extended Minced Products – Meat and Vegetable Protein Combination
- A delicious pork breakfast patty, lower in fat, high in protein
- Formed chicken strips, straight batter system, but with the addition of wheat starch and textured wheat to eliminate an allergen
- How about a flavourful beef patty with organic soy flour and textured soy?
Delicious Breaded and Baked Meats
- Reduced cost chicken nuggets made with only wheat flour and textural wheat proteins
- Baked Beef Meat Loaf using only soy flours and textured soy flour
WHOLE MUSCLE?
Whole Muscle based products are the most difficult products to achieve a substantial cost reduction in, but still provide the eating experience that consumers are looking for. We can look at this in a few ways. The first way is to look at the types of standard ingredients used in whole muscle products and explore the innovative and lower cost new cures, yield enhancers, flavours, spice applications and nets or casings. Our R&D team are fully up to date on the latest technologies the meat industry has to offer.
The second area is to look at innovative processing techniques, combined with emerging technologies. Our R&D team has many years of experience in processing using a wide range of techniques and they would be glad to discuss your products and fine tune the process to get the yields and texture you are trying to achieve. As well, we are working with emerging technologies like spice coated sheets to reduce waste, improved functional ingredients and a range of new processing ideas and equipment.
Finally, we are pushing the boundaries of whole muscle products into the blended meat and vegetable protein category. Where costly meat is replaced by lower cost vegetable proteins and flours that are added to either a macerated whole muscle or injected into the meat itself along with great flavours. Improved cook yields, nutrition and slicing with reduced purge.
We are already working on substantive cost reduction techniques and concepts for whole muscle products.
WHY SHOULD YOU WORK WITH HELA SPICE?
- R&D Team experienced in many different product categories
- Ability to create products based on customers’ ideas
- Ability to bring new product ideas and fully developed concepts for customer review
- Real plant production experience that enables Hela Spice to create an easy to produce system of blends and raw materials including processing instructions, to make processing simple for companies
- We can adapt procedures to best utilize available plant processing equipment
Have a product idea? Tell us all about it and your search for the perfect ingredients. Find it all at Hela Spice. Let’s talk about your next best-seller.
